CTLC: Young Adult Romance

I attended the Colorado Teen Literature Conference a couple weeks ago and the afternoon keynote speaker was the award-winning romance writer Simone Elkeles, best known for her Perfect Chemistry and How to Ruin trilogies.  Her self-deprecating humor was very engaging, as she talked about her path to writing YA romance.  She frequently does talks at correctional facilities where her novels are wildly popular with young incarcerated males.   Her new novel Crossing the Line, which is about star crossed lovers in Mexico, comes out June 12th. While you are waiting for its publication, I would like to recommend several new YA romances.   Starry Eyes by Jenn Bennett (Alex, Approximately) explores the Romeo and Juliet romance between former best friends whose parents are feuding. August and Everything After by Jen Doktorski (The Summer After You and Me) focuses on two musicians who find solace in each other after the loss of friends in traffic accidents. In The Upside of Falling Down by Rebekah Crane (The Odds of Loving Grover Cleveland), Clementine Haas, an American teen who experiences amnesia after surviving a plane crash in Ireland, falls in love with an Irishman and his country, as she is trying to rediscover who she is.

In Starry Eyes nerdy stargazer Zorie Everhart uncharacteristically agrees to join a group of popular classmates on a "glamping" vacation at a northern California resort, the summer after her junior year.  She plans to attend a meteor shower viewing with her astronomy club at a nearby location after the trip. When the teens come to pick her up for the drive, she is horrified to find out that her former best friend and crush Lennon Mackenzie is going, too.   Their families are feuding because his lesbian moms have opened a sex shop next to Zorie's parents' spa, which seems to be hurting business, and they haven't spoken to each other since he stood her up for homecoming without an explanation.  After a series of unfortunate events, Zorie and Lennon find themselves abandoned by their friends without a ride home, so they decide to hike to the meteor shower event, giving them time to resolve their differences and find their way back to love.  Serious subjects such as grief, betrayal and divorce are explored, but the snappy dialogue, sympathetic characters and an action packed plot are what will make this a winner with teens.

August and Everything After introduces Quinn and Malcolm who meet when they are both grieving the loss of friends in traffic accidents: she her best friend and he two band mates. In the aftermath of loss, Quinn is paralyzed by panic attacks and Malcolm substance abuse.  When Malcolm invites her to play drums for his new album, she finds it the perfect summer distraction.  As their relationship deepens through music and her desire to save Malcolm from his demons, Quinn struggles with sublimating her own desires to Malcolm's demands.  Pressured by her mother and aunt to decide on a master plan for her future, she must decide whether to go on tour with Malcolm after they record his demo or focus on her own goals and healing.  Appropriately named after the Counting Crows' debut album (1993), the book is about change and redemption and forgiving oneself.

The Upside of Falling Down is a step above the usual amnesiac melodrama.  The only survivor of a plane crash outside Shannon, Ireland, 18-year-old American Clementine "Teeny" Haas panics when she wakes up in an Irish hospital, remembering nothing of her former life.  Playing a game of truth or dare, she convinces a hospital volunteer, Kieran O'Connell, to sneak her out of the hospital and take her to Waterville, where Kieran shares a home with his pregnant twin sister Siobhan.  Hoping to regain her memory, Teeny spends time with Siobhan and her boss Clive at a used book, record, and costume shop and helps Kieran with his "do-gooder" projects around town.  Slowly, fragmented memories of her old life surface, meanwhile her father and nurse Stephen are back at the hospital trying to locate her.  Kieran and Teeny continue their game of truth or dare, concentrating much more on dares than telling each other the truth about her identity and his conflicted relationship with his business mogul father.  The colorful characters and Irish setting make this a charming read.  Siobhan is a testy rebel, who is very suspicious of Teeny, and Clive is a flamboyant bisexual who embraces Teeny's impulsive spirited antics in her search for her true self.  Kieran is, of course, a swoon-worthy leading man, whose good looks and supportive friendship lead Teeny to fall in love with him.  The surprising reveal at the conclusion makes this a fun and satisfying romantic read.